DEVELOPMENT COACH TOPS CIS – IN BENCH PENALTIES

Put your hands together for a lede that tells you nothing about this article at all.

I’m serious. That, and how this article takes a sarcastic tone. 1-2-3 baby.

Coaches from all over the league are looking up at the shining blue and gold butt of Ryerson’s development coach Sam Christmas today. Not in a statistical category as trivial as a shorthanded assist in the second period of away games played on Thursday nights or game winning goals *Cough* we had two *cough.*

No, the Rams lead the nation in the one other category besides PIMs that truly matter to the throngs of people that journey from Ryerson to Dundas subway, transfer at Bloor subway and head west to Runnymede stop. Wait for the 71 bus, take it north for 15 minutes, get off across from the Wal-Mart. Walk another three blocks down Ryding Avenue through a residential area then cut across George Bell Park to pack George Bell Arena and watch our 2-23-2-1 boys.

What was the point of this story again? Oh right, bench minors by player development coaches.

The Rams collected 1,025 penalty minutes this season, the most in the Canadian Intervarsity Sports, but who cares really? Christmas is out there every night throwing chairs.

The less informed hockey fan might say something like, “Holy crap, he throws chairs? I would make the 45 minute trip to see that!”

And those are the fans we need. Who cares if you lose 9-2? The player development coach flipped out, threw a water bottle at the refs head, scaled the glass partition between the team benches and pounded on U of T head coach Darren Lowe until he admitted we beat him somewhere in the arena.

Fans come out, Ryerson makes money, puts it back into the hockey team, we eventually get to see Wise thrown out AND a winning season.

And it’s not just the penalties that will pack them in. No, it’s the unique ways in which Christmas will get the bench minor.

One week he could military press the RMC captain, the next he could throw a stick from the bench and chop down a Queen’s player on one of their billion odd man rushes.

The responsibility for Christmas’ undisciplined style of coaching lies directly on the shoulders of Ryerson administration. Christmas – a seasoned and successful coach elsewhere in Ontario University Athletics – is seemingly unable to get anyone to care enough to come to games even though his boys get in the odd tussle. (They average just under 37 PIMs a game.)

With a record of 23-2-2-1 – 23 times he flipped his lid, twice he didn’t have to, three times he was tied to the bench so he could only scream obscenities – this editorialist doesn’t get why students aren’t showing up to games.

Coach Christmas should set an example for next season and just beat up someone in administration, say in the center of the quad for all to see. It’ll get us ready for next season.